Individuals show great diversity in their ability to identify scents and odors. More importantly, males and females greatly differ in their perceptual evaluation of odors, with women outperforming men on many kinds of smell tests.

Sex differences in olfactory detection may play a role in differentiated social behaviors and may be connected to one’s perception of smell, which is naturally linked to associated experiences and emotions. Thus, women’s olfactory superiority has been suggested to be cognitive or emotional, rather than perceptual.

Previous studies investigating the biological roots of greater olfactory sensitivity in women have used imaging methods that allow gross measures of brain structures. The results of such studies have been controversial, leaving unanswered the question of whether differences in olfactory sensitivity have biological roots or whether they represent a mere by-product of social and cognitive differences between genders.

The isotropic fractionator, a fast and reliable technique previously developed by a group of researchers at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, measures the absolute number of cells in a given brain structure such as the olfactory bulb, which is the first brain region to receive olfactory information captured by the nostrils.

Using this technique, a group of researchers led by Prof. Roberto Lent from the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and the National Institute of Translational Neuroscience, Ministry of Science and Technology in Brazil, has finally found biological evidence in the brains of men and women that may explain the olfactory difference between genders.

The group examined post-mortem brains from seven men and 11 women who were all over the age of 55 at the time of death. All individuals were neurologically healthy and none worked in professions requiring exceptional olfactory abilities, such as coffee-tasting or professional cooking. By calculating the number of cells in the olfactory bulbs of these individuals, the group (that also included researchers from the University of São Paulo, the University of California, San Francisco, and the Albert Einstein Hospital in São Paulo) discovered that women have on average 43% more cells than men in this brain structure. Counting neurons specifically, the difference reached almost 50% more in women than men.

The question remains whether this higher cell number accounts for the differences in olfactory sensitivity between sexes. “Generally speaking, says Prof. Lent, larger brains with larger numbers of neurons correlate with the functional complexity provided by these brains. Thus, it makes sense to think that more neurons in the female olfactory bulbs would provide women with higher olfactory sensitivity”.

The fact that few cells are added to our brains throughout life suggests that women are already born with these extra cells. But why do women’s brains have this pre-wired ability? What mechanisms are responsible for this higher number of cells in their olfactory bulbs? Some believe this olfactory ability is essential for reproductive behaviors such as pair bonding and kin recognition.

If this holds true, then superior olfactory ability is an essential trait that has been inherited and then maintained throughout evolution, an idea expressed by Romanian playwright Eugene Ionesco when he said “a nose that can see is worth two that sniff”.

The post The Female Nose Always Knows: Do Women Have More Olfactory Neurons? appeared first on Eurasia Review.

A fundamental step-change involving an increase in funding and political commitment is urgently needed to ensure that protected areas deliver their full conservation, social and economic potential, according to an article published today in Nature by experts from Wildlife Conservation Society, the University of Queensland, and the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA).

The paper, The performance and potential of protected areas, comes ahead of the IUCN World Parks Congress 2014 – a once-in-a-decade global forum on protected areas opening next week in Sydney, Australia.

According to the authors, allocating US$45 – $76 billion to protected areas annually – just 2.5% of the global annual military expenditure – could help adequately manage those areas, ensuring their potential contribution to the well-being of the planet is fully met.

Many threatened species, such as the Asian elephant, the tiger, and all rhinoceros species, as well as numerous plants, reptiles and amphibians, survive thanks to protected areas. Well-managed marine protected areas contain more than five times the total large fish biomass and 14 times the shark biomass compared with fished areas.

“Protected areas offer us solutions to some of today’s most pressing challenges” says Dr James Watson of the Wildlife Conservation Society and The University of Queensland and lead author of the study. “But by continuing with ‘business as usual’, we are setting them up for failure. A step-change in the way we value, fund, govern and manage those areas is neither impossible nor unrealistic and would only represent a fraction of what the world spends annually on defense.”

According to the latest data, protected areas cover around 15% of land and 3% of oceans. Experts warn, however, that despite the significant increase in their coverage over the past century, this is still short of the global 2020 targets to protect at least 17% of land and 10% of oceans. Many ecosystems remain poorly conserved because protected areas do not always encompass the most important areas for biodiversity.

In addition, the vast majority of existing protected areas that are well placed do not have sufficient resources to be effective, with some studies finding as few as one quarter of them are being effectively managed. Growing threats from climate change and the escalating poaching crisis place additional pressures on protected areas globally.

“Some of the most iconic protected areas, such as Ecuador’s Galapagos National Park, are undergoing significant degradation, partly due to an inability to manage them effectively,” says Professor Marc Hockings of The University of Queensland,co-author of the study and member of the IUCN WCPA. “But governments cannot be solely responsible for ensuring that protected areas fulfill their potential. We need to find new, innovative ways to fund and manage them, actively involving government, business and community groups.”

The paper also highlights an alarming increase in governments – in both developing and developed countries – backtracking on their commitments through funding cuts and changes in policy. A recent global analysis has documented 543 instances where protected areas saw their status downgraded or removed altogether.

For example, recent cuts to the Parks Canada budget have reduced conservation spending by 15%¬. In Uganda, active oil exploration and development is occurring inside many protected areas, including Murchison Falls National Park. In Indonesia, in 2010, mining permits were issued inside 481,000 hectares of protected areas and in the Virgin Komi Forests in Russia, significant boundary changes have been made to reserves such as the Yugyd Va National Park to allow mining. The Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in Oman was removed from the World Heritage List after the government reduced the size of the reserve by 90% to allow for oil and gas extraction.

“There is a fundamental need for an increase in support of global protected areas, including better recognition, funding, planning and enforcement” says Nigel Dudley, co-author of the paper, from Equilibrium Research and The University of Queensland, member of the IUCN WCPA. “It is government’s responsibility to step up but there is also the need for the wider community to take collective responsibility for protected areas.”

Protected areas conserve biodiversity and sustain a large proportion of the world’s poorest people by providing them with food, water, shelter and medicine. They play a key part in climate change mitigation and adaptation and bolster national economies through tourism revenues. In Rwanda, for example, tourism revenue from visits to see mountain gorillas inside Volcanoes National Park is now the country’s largest source of foreign exchange, raising US$200 million annually. In Australia, the 2012–2013 budget for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority was approximately AUS$50 million, but tourism to the reef was worth more than A$5.2 billion annually to the Australian economy.

“The growth of the modern global protected area movement over the last 100 years is arguably the greatest conservation achievement,” says Julia Marton-Lefèvre, IUCN Director General. “It is also increasingly important for livelihoods and global security. The key now is for countries to recognize the return on investment that protected areas offer and realize that those places are fundamental to the future of life on earth. This is exactly what we hope to achieve at the upcoming IUCN World Parks Congress.”

Effective management of protected areas, the threats they face and the solutions they offer to today’s global challenges will be discussed at the IUCN World Parks Congress taking place in Sydney from 12 to 19 November 2014.

The post A Fraction Of Global Military Spending Could Save Planet’s Biodiversity appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Bhaskar Roy

An explosion in a house in Khagragram, Burdwan district, West Bengal, on October 02 opened the eyes of the Indian central intelligence to a burning fire building up in this region. The explosion was purely accidental, while an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) was being made. Two of the bomb makers died, and a third was injured. Two women, wives of the two dead men were arrested. They have begun to talk with significant details.

Till now the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) has discovered seven Madrassas which were used for arms training of terrorists. Two hundred bombs were recovered from a public health building in the area. It has been established that these bomb making units, training Madrassas and concerned individuals belong to the Jamatul Mujahidin Bangladesh (JMB), a now banned terrorist organization of Bangladesh.

What has been discovered may only be the proverbial tip of the iceberg because the JMB network appears extended to Assam. The JMB has tied up with the banned Student’s Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the Indian Mujahidin (IM).

The West Bengal government led by Chief Minister Ms. Mamata Bannerjee would have to answer several questions, but principally the following two. Why Ms. Bannerjee and her party colleagues were trying to oppose central investigation agencies like the NIA, lamely arguing this would negatively impact the federal constitution? What is the role of black money of the Sharada Chit Fund Scandal, if any, in this, because intelligence received from the Bangladesh government says Sharada money has gone from India to Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) party in Bangladesh to try to topple the Awami League led government.

In parallel what is the role of the West Bengal ruling party Trinamool Congress (TMC) member, Ahmad Hasan Imran, who is also TMC MP of the Rajya Sabha (upper house), in all these developments? Imran is closely associated with the Sharada group and alleged to have channeled Sharada funds to the JEI. Imran was a cofounder of SIMI, but he claims he left the organization in 1984. Imran reportedly migrated to India illegally sometime between 1970 and 1971 when Bengalees in East Pakistan were fighting for independence from Pakistan.

The current developments have deep roots and a long history. Starting from Pakistan sponsored “unrestricted” warfare supporting separatists in North East India (Assam, Nagaland and others), it took the form of anti-liberation warfare led by the Jamaat-e-Islami in 1971. Following the liberation of Bangladesh JEI was banned and several of their leaders including its Amir, Gulam Azam, were expelled and not given citizenship. The horrific atrocities committed by the JEI collaborators of the Pakistani army against the Bengalees, is well known. According to a Pakistani army officer then serving in Dhaka, the Pakistani army raised 50,000 volunteers known as “Razakars” from among the pro-Pakistani JEI elements, many of whom remained to form terrorist organizations like the JMB.

Soon after liberation internal and foreign conspirators colluded to try and reverse “Bangladesh”. The father of the nation Sk. Mujibur Rahman was assassinated by a group of young army officers, in August 1975. Gen. Zia-ur-Reheman killed and manipulated his way through to become president of the nation. He legalized the JEI, and formed his own political party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Zia was assassinated in a coup in 1981 to pave the way for army Chief H.M. Ershad to execute his own coup to become president. Zia’s widow Begum Khaleda Zia took over as president of the BNP.

In the meanwhile, the JEI kept growing quietly, expanding its domestic sources of income, receiving donations form foreign Islamic NGOs and worked as a conduit for Pakistan’s influence.

During the Afghan war, the JEI sent an estimated 40,000 workers to fight alongside the Taliban against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. After the war most of them returned, deeply indoctrinated in Wahabism and Jehad.

The JMB and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (HUJI) became the backbone of terrorism in Bangladesh, along with more than one hundred other smaller religious extremist organizations.

The period 2001 to 2006 in Bangladesh saw the peaking of terrorism under the BNP-JEI ruling alliance patronage. It witnessed the worst possible period of India-Bangladesh relationship, with Dhaka at times going out of the way to provoke and insult India in the international fora. There were talks among the ruling alliance leaders to eventually form a confederation type of relationship with Pakistan. Separately, the JEI felt at the rate that they were expanding they would be able to form a majority government in Bangladesh by 2012-13.

In parallel, the Awami League and its leaders especially Sk. Hasina, became the prime target of the terrorists at the behest of some leaders of the ruling alliance. The Awami League was seen as a friend of India. In Pakistan’s perception, as long as Sk. Hasina was alive she would ensure good relations with India and work as an impediment to Islamabad’s influence in Bangladesh. This period also saw the rise of Tarique Reheman, older son of Begum Khaleda Zia, as the main power of the BNP. Several political assassinations of Awami League leaders took place during this time. But the most important target was Sk. Hasina. Among the attempts on Sk. Hasina’s life, one that nearly killed her was on August 21, 2004 in Dhaka. There was a grenade attack on the Awami League gathering which was being addressed by Sk. Hasina. Twenty-four leaders and activists of the party were killed including presidium member Ms. Ivy Rehman. Sk. Hasina was seriously injured in her left ear.

The leader of the terrorist group, Mufti Hannan, commander of HUJI, has since been arrested. He has confessed to the crime and implicated several senior BNP leaders including Minister of State for Home Affairs, Lutfozzaman Babar and Tareque Reheman.

Even more interesting is the statement given to the court by the former chief of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), Maj. Gen (retd) Sadik Hossain Rumi. Rumi detailed how Prime Minister Khaleda Zia did not allow him to investigate the incident.

It was Hannan who during interrogation by the Task Force intelligence (TFI) revealed the involvement of Tareque Reheman, and Minister Babar and Abdul Salam Pintu in the attack. Pintu’s brother, Maulana Tajuddin, who was also involved in the conspiracy, was quietly sent out of the country.

JEI Amir Motiur Reheman Nizami and Khaleda had always denied the existence of JMB calling it a creation of the media, till the country-wide bombing on August 17, 2004. Bombs were exploded almost simultaneously in 63 of Bangladesh’s 64 districts to demonstrate the JMB’s power and reach, and the official patronage they enjoyed. It was only after US President George W. Bush’s warning that six of the seven top leaders of JMB were arrested in March 2006 and executed subsequently for the murder of two judges.

Interrogation of the JMB leaders including its chief, Shaikh Abdur Reheman and his deputy Siddiqul Islam @ Bangla Bhai revealed the deep connection of the organization with Pakistan’s ISI and its terrorist arms like the Laskar-e-Toiba (LET).

Bangladeshi investigators later found that Islamic NGOs like Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS) of Kuwait, Al Harmain Foundation, Benevolence Society run by Osama Bin Laden’s brother and several others from Pakistan, Lybia and Qatar have been funding the JMB, HUJI and other such organizations. Two banks used for channeling these funds were Islami Bank of Bangladesh and Al Arafah Bank.

Ten truckload of arms meant for the ULFA and other North-East Indian insurgents accidentally intercepted in Chittagong in May 2004 was another conspiracy to destabilize India. Directly involved in this effort include Tareque Rehman, Lutfozzaman Babar, Motiur Reheman Nizami, and Pakistan’s ISI. There are reports that international criminal Dawood Ibrahim who lives in Pakistan under ISI’s patronage and protection was also included in consultations.

The above are only representative samples of ruling party sponsored terrorism as secondary warfare. Although the sponsors are not in the government today, they remain active. If they return to power tomorrow the result would be unimaginable.

The sooner one realizes the immensity of this terrorism challenge, the easier it will be to tackle it. Primarily, the JMB and other Bangladeshi groups are targeting Sk. Hasina, the Awami League as a political party, and progressive political parties.

The JEI is under immense pressure. They lost the 2008 elections very badly. Legalistically speaking, the JEI cannot contest elections as it has resisted to abide by the constitution and Election Commission rules. Next, most of their top leaders are in jail, being tried for crimes against humanity during the war of liberation, by two International Crimes Tribunals (ICTs) set up by the government. Some of the leaders like Qader Mollah have been hanged, Gulam Azam died of old age in jail, and the Amir Nizami had recently been sentenced to death. Two BNP leaders are also on trial.

There is a perception that if Sk. Hasina is eliminated the Awami League may break up and can be manipulated. Therefore, the threat to her life is on a continuous scale.

As promised when she was elected prime minister in 2009, Sk. Hasina rooted out Indian insurgents from Bangladesh’s soil. She went after terrorist groups like JMB and HUJI with equal force, but dedicated remnants remained. She, therefore, has the right to demand India to take action to destroy the Bangladeshi terrorists from Indian soil (Nov. 01). JMB’s activities in Bangladesh have also picked up.

The manner in which IEDs were being manufactured in West Bengal for smuggling to Bangladesh suggests a mayhem was planned. At the same time, the JMB has linked up with the IM and others extending to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. With the birth of the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria, it seems a celebration of global terrorism has commenced. JMB, IM, SIMI and the kind are already active in sending fighters to the IS and the Al Qaeda.

Hence the question arises again. How is it that these bomb making and indoctrination centers flourished in West Bengal in the last three years under the very nose of the state security apparatus? The behaviour of the state police force is highly suspect. And again what is the role of the Sharada group and TMC leaders connected with it?

All this takes us back to the old debate: Why did Mamata Bannerjee back out from signing the Teesta River water sharing deal between India and Bangladesh at the last moment? The JEI and the BNP both opposed the Teesta agreement to embarrass Sk. Hasina and India.

Why were radical Muslims allowed protest marches in West Bengal against the trial and execution of the 1971 war criminals in Bangladesh?

There are too many critical unanswered questions for the security of India and that of friendly neighbour Bangladesh. These must be attended to with haste and the diabolical cross border plans must be unveiled to the public.

(The writer is a New Delhi based strategic analyst. He can be reached at e-mail grouchohart@yahoo.com)

The post Bangla Terror In West Bengal: Political Opportunism? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Dr Subhash Kapila

Strong imperatives exist in the context of the emerging situation in Afghanistan, volatility in Pakistan, India’s energy security and India’s access to Central Asian markets through Iran for resuscitating the Iran-India Strategic Partnership.

The Iran-India Strategic Partnership was envisioned in the New Delhi Declaration signed on January 25 by Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee and visiting Iranian President Khatami as the Chief Guest at India’s Republic Day Parade 2003. The New Delhi Declaration of 2003 was preceded by the Teheran Declaration of 2001 signed again by PM Vajpayee on his visit to Iran. Both these Declarations testify to the fact that both Iran and India wished to establish a well-bonded and structured Strategic Partnership.

With another BJP Prime Minister in power in New Delhi and as an assertive and dynamic one too it would be in the fitness of India’s security imperatives that this Strategic Partnership is pursued and restored to its full vigour. The Modi Government has yet to establish its footprints in the Middle East and Iran with which India has centuries old civilizational ties would ideally and strategically be the best place to commence this process.

India’s privileged relationship with Iran was unceremoniously ditched by the succeeding Congress Government buckling under United States Congress pressures to salvage the Indo-US Nuclear Deal as a quid pro quo.

Strategically ironic is the fact that the United States which held the Iran-India Strategic Partnership as hostage for the conclusion of the Indo-US Nuclear Deal should itself now be attempting to pursue Iran for the progress of US-Iran nuclear negotiations despite US Congressional pressures and more importantly in securing Iran’s assistance for the United States confrontation with the menacing SIS threat engulfing the Northern Middle East.

A vibrant Iran-India Strategic Partnership despite the Cold War gladiators on US Capitol Hill would neither be a threat to the United States or Israel’s national security interests. On the contrary it may prove to be beneficial for Middle East regional security when the predominant regional power in the Gulf Region works and cooperates closely with India not only as the regional power in Iran’s contiguous region but also as an emerging power in its own right.

Needing emphasis is the strategic reality that Iran is the foremost regional power of the Middle East along with Turkey. If Iran could withstand for nearly four decades the United States threats of military intervention is in itself a measure of Iran’s military potential to unleash multi-dimensional ripostes. That has held back the United States so far.

Let it not be underplayed that the Iran-India Strategic Partnership was a logical follow-up to the strategic convergences that existed between these two prominent nations in the context of Afghanistan and Pakistan and Pakistan’s Talibanisation of Afghanistan and its export of Islamic Jihad.

Afghanistan and Pakistan continue to be major strategic concerns for both India and Iran in 2014 too, even after a decade, when strategic uncertainties hover even more strongly and menacingly with the announced exit of US Forces from Afghanistan and in its wake the reactivation of the Al Qaeda, Taliban and possibly the ISIS as some reports suggest.

Afghanistan which has made strides towards democracy and development stands endangered with the revival of Pakistan Army’s imperial pretensions in the unfolding exit of US military presence from Afghanistan. Unlike Iraq where one is witnessing the incremental return of US military forces to pre-empt the ISIS threat, any such repeat is unlikely in Afghanistan’s case should Pakistan Army ‘s proxy disruptionist destabilisation operations succeed.

Iran enjoys a unique geostrategic location in that it is geographically contiguous to both Afghanistan and Pakistan and that imparts certain strategic and military leverages to keep Pakistan in check.

Both Iran and India have significant stakes in the security and stability of Afghanistan and both these nations involvement in Afghanistan in the past decade and a half has been a benign one. Strategic logic therefore dictates that both Iran and India join hands to ensure that they make concerted efforts to ensure that Afghanistan rises as a successful nation-state and stands on its own two legs to confront disruptionist threats.

Iran and India notably had a strategic convergence in supporting the Northern Alliance against the Pakistan Army-propped Taliban regime in Kabul.

The vehicle for both Iran and India to achieve their common strategic objectives in Afghanistan would be a well-bonded Strategic Partnership.

Energy security is another critical area of interest for India in relation to Iran. India needs to reduce its oil-dependency on oil producers within the Gulf. Iran also offers the shortest route for oil supplies to India without passing through any choke-points.

India’s significant strategic and economic stakes in Afghanistan and Central Asia can only be furthered through Iranian cooperation as Pakistan continues and would continue to deny land route access to India. All these years if India could succeed in completion of billion dollars development projects and economic activities in Afghanistan it was facilitated by access given by Iran through its Chah Bahar port and development of link highways to the Afghanistan roads grid.

Two points need to be made here with the first being hat even with India buckling to US Congress pressures to downgrade its ties, Iran continued to provide access to India to pursue its political and strategic objectives in Afghanistan. Secondly, on a larger plane it needs to be highlighted that at the height of US military intervention in Afghanistan, Iran unlike Pakistan did not destabilise Western Afghanistan to US strategic discomfiture which has a long contiguous border with Iran.

Chah Bahar port’s speedy joint development by Iran and India seems to have been a casualty of India’s downgrading strategic ties with Iran in the middle of the last decade. With China making glaring intrusive operations in the Indian Ocean and taking over the Pakistani port of Gwadar, India needs to pick up steam to fast-track the upgradation and expansion of facilities in Chah Bahar port to serve its economic and strategic needs.

Besides India’s significant strategic and economic stakes in an effective Iran-India Strategic Partnership there is another vital aspect that cannot be ignored and that is India’s Shia affinity with Iran. Some reports suggest that India has the fourth largest Shia Muslim population in the world of which Iran is the spiritual leader of Shia Islam. This makes for an important spiritual and political linkage between the two countries.

On all counts therefore India needs to vigorously resuscitate the Iran-India Strategic Partnership. India values its strategic partnerships with the United States and Israel too. Israel has been a good strategic friend of India. However, both the United States and Israel need to recognise and India also needs to appreciate that India’s national security and strategic imperatives are paramount as and should predominate its policy formulations even as it concurrently values its strategic partnerships with others.

Further, in the process of India striking a well-bonded Strategic Partnership with Iran, the national security interests of both the United States and Israel possibly could be better served.

Concluding, to substantiate the above assertion, one would like to quote from a Harvard University Policy Brief written some time back that: “If the United States reaches a point at which it will engage Iran in some capacity, India could provide a helpful role. New Delhi’s close relationship with Iran, the United States and Israel puts it in a unique position as a political intermediary, similar to China’s role in the said Six Party Talks on North Korea.”

(Dr Subhash Kapila is Consultant, International Relations and Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. He can be reached at drsubhashkapila.007@gmail.com)

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By Col. R. Hariharan

In today’s fast changing global and regional scenario, how can SAARC countries become more pragmatic and practical and really benefit this great chunk of humanity?

This is a question that has become a cliché. Ever since the South Asia Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was conceived in 1985, it has been a work in progress. It remains largely ineffective, hostage to the political polemics of member-nations particularly India and Pakistan.

The leaders of South Asian states will once again be converging in Kathmandu on November 26 and 27 to attend the 18th SAARC Summit meeting. Of course, as the leaders are adept in public speaking, lofty ideas will be tossed around, with every one of them stressing the historic links of the region to peace, harmony and friendship.

However, at the end of it all the question when SAARC – world’s largest grouping of nations – will make a difference in the quality of life of the people will be still left hanging in the air. That has been the norm. For once I wish I am proved wrong.

It is not for want of effort SAARC has failed to make progress. A look at the SAARC website shows 16 areas – a mélange of alphabets ranging from agriculture to tourism – identified for cooperation at the 17 summit meetings held so far. But the problem it faces in translating ideas into collective action.

For instance the SAARC Convention on Terrorism was evolved in 1987 – within two years of formation of the SAARC – even before the Al Qaeda carried out the 9/11 terror attacks in the U.S. Additional protocols to the Convention updated the strategies in 2005.

However, terrorism is firmly established in South Asia now than when the Convention on Terrorism was originally adopted. The sub-continent has become so fertile a ground for its growth that international terrorism in the form of Islamic State is attracted to roost here.

Similar is the progress made on the SAARC Preferential Trading Arrangement (SAPTA) finalized in 1993, became operational in 1995. It was followed by the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) in 2006. However, narrow political considerations and suspicion about each other have prevented its benefits from reaching the ordinary people. Inevitably, FTAs between SAARC-member nations have been slow in coming and the consumer continues to pay the price for the inaction.

So SAARC protocols and conventions look largely good on paper. As a result SAARC continues to run in the same place with bureaucracy largely doing what they can think of. If only the decibels of leaders in summit meetings could add value, SAARC would have emerged vibrant. But this remains a distant dream and the development story in the region remains a lop-sided one benefitting the haves rather than the have-nots.

Usually any talk about gingering up SAARC starts and ends India and its fractured relationship with Pakistan for very good reasons. India dominates its South Asian neighbours with its enormous geographical size and overwhelming economic, political and military power. India occupies a major part of the historical memories of its neighbours. As a result India’s soft power has become embedded in the region’s religious, social and cultural perceptions with strong but varying internal response. India’s success as a functional democracy since independence and rise as a major Asian economic power has scaled up the latent love-hate feelings about India among the neighbours.

India as the only nation having land and sea connectivity with all SAARC members gives it a strategic edge over its neighbours. Excluding Maldives and Sri Lanka which are island nations, others do not have land connectivity with each other. Cumulatively, all these factors give India an unmatched ability to influence and arbiter issues in South Asia.

Predatory politics in the region has found it a useful to tool to fan the fears of India overwhelming its neighbours. India-baiting invariably finds a place both in their political and security perceptions. This has resulted in anti-India sentiments usually featuring in political discourses during the elections.

In spite of this, most of India’s neighbours have been pragmatic enough to maintain good relations and reciprocate India’s gestures. Nepal and Bhutan enjoy the fruits of such good will to enjoy unrestricted trade and entry facilities for its citizens. Smaller states like Sri Lanka and Maldives had sought Indian military assistance in times of political and national emergencies.

Unfortunately, India had been slow to understand the need for taking greater care and sensitivity in wielding its power. However, India’s efforts to change its style since 90s has been buffeted by strategic priorities and internal political coalition compulsions affecting its delivery.

It is true the fractious India-Pakistan relations are a major roadblock to the growth of SAARC. The two nations together represent over five-sixth of the 1.8 billion people of the sub-continent. And with their collective economic and political clout, only these two nations have the potential to energise SAARC. But they are yet to exercise their cumulative power for this larger objective.

It would be facile to argue that the problems of SAARC relate only to the estranged relationship of India and Pakistan. South Asian countries have some inherent problems to start with. They have some of the high population densities in the world. The largest number of illiterate people and people below poverty level live in South Asia. Most of its members suffer from problems of internal unrest and extremism, lack of resources, poor infrastructure and governance. The life blood of many members has been sapped region in combating against some of the most powerful terrorist and insurgency groups in the world.

But the positives of the region should not be missed out while looking at the negatives. These include young and energetic population, strong entrepreneurship skills, rich mineral and marine resources, and assets of shared history and culture binding the people across the nations. And a huge under serviced market place and ready availability of large technical manpower that can absorb new technologies are assets waiting to be exploited.

The harsh truth is SAARC has failed because member-states have not learnt from the experience of other groupings like the ASEAN and the EU to adopt collective action to pool their strengths to overcome their weaknesses. Historical memories have been preventing to build their collective experience. This has resulted in the absence of a collective South Asian identity for fostering regional solidarity.

It is odious to compare ASEAN and EU with SAARC because each nation has its baggage of national experience conditioned by their geographical contiguity, religious and cultural beliefs and perceptions. The historical context and environment in which the EU and ASEAN groupings came about were unique.

Both the EU and ASEAN are products of Cold War compulsions. In the case of EU the post-World War-II economic privations and the threat of Soviet Union destabilizing their countries prodded them to come together. On the other hand, ASEAN came about with the U.S. patronage to act as buffers to ward off Communist China’s threat to Southeast Asia. When Cold War ended, both the groupings focused on evolving structural frame works for issues of relevance to members like security, energy, developmental resources, trade and commerce, economic stability and counter-terrorism.

In the case of South Asia, there was no common external threat for collective action. The only common factor was the vestiges of British colonial occupation which conditioned not only the perceptions of former colonial countries but other independent ones like Afghanistan, Nepal and Bhutan. At present in all countries, democratic dispensation is in place with elected governments in power except Nepal where the process is on for drafting a new constitution.

In Afghanistan where a new president has been elected and installed as Taliban terrorism has been brought to manageable levels. In Pakistan, despite the looming threat of terrorism and history of militarism, people have preferred to democratically elect the Nawaz Sharif coalition with a majority.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi who assumed office in May 2014 after his thumping victory in the parliamentary elections, ushers in an era of political stability. He is trying to change India’s traditional laid back approach to its neighbours. His invitation to the leaders of neighbouring countries for his swearing-in sent a strong signal that building better relations with them will be his priority. With economic development on top of his national agenda, India would like to further trade and commerce links with the neighbours.

His invitation to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on the occasion surprised everyone including his own supporters. And despite opposition at home, the Pakistani leader reciprocated the gesture and attended the anointing of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister of India.

At a New Delhi press meet on the occasion, Nawaz Sharif said “we both are in the beginning of a clear mandate from our respective nations. This provides an opportunity to fulfil the hopes of 1.5 billion people of the two countries who want us to focus on people and welfare. We had talks in warm and cordial atmosphere.” The Pakistan Prime Minister was actually touching upon India-Pakistan rapprochement – one of the key triggers for making SAARC an effective entity.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has followed up his initial gestures to South Asian neighbours by visiting Bhutan and Nepal first, rather than visiting Japan or meeting with the Chinese President. When India achieved a land mark success in placing a satellite on Mars orbit in its very first attempt, Prime Minister Modi told the scientists of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to develop a SAARC satellite. “We should dedicate this satellite as India’s gift….We should share the fruit of this with our neighbouring countries,” he added underlining his preference for India’s neighbours. These friendly gestures should not be missed out in reading India’s new Prime Minister.

There are disturbing developments in and around South Asia that show time is running out for collective action. With the U.S. and its NATO allies poised to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan, the three groups of Taliban militants are likely to vigorously renew their operations against the elected government in Afghanistan. This could adversely affect the terrorism situation in Pakistan also.

According to Pakistan media reports the Pakistani Taliban has declared its allegiance to the Islamic State (IS). The IS which has gobbled up large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq has effectively used social media to appeal to Muslim youth the world over from the U.S. to Indonesia. This has enabled the IS to emerge as the most feared terrorist group with its widely publicised acts of brutality against Shia, Christian and Yazdi population.

The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) which is locked in a war with Pakistan has expressed solidarity with the IS on the occasion of Eid al-Adha. Its spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said “Oh our brothers, we are proud of you in your victories. We are with you in your happiness and your sorrow….All in the Muslim world have great expectations of you….We are with you, we will provide you with Mujahideen and with every possible support.”

Last month, the al Qaeda Chief Ayman-al Zawahari had appointed a Taliban leader Asim Umar as the ‘emir’ of the new South Asia branch of the al Qaeda network signalling the renewed interest of al Qaeda in expanding its activities in South Asia.

Though the IS and the al Qaeda have not formed an alliance so far, al Qaeda may well follow the example of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), an ally of the Taliban based in the tribal belt since 2001, has declared its allegiance to the IS. A significant aspect of IMU leader Usman Gazi message is his praise for the IS for its refusal to recognise state borders and being “free from the patriotic or nationalist agenda.” Due to the convergence of al Qaeda’s interests and goals, there is a distinct and dangerous possibility of it forming an alliance with IS in the near future.

South Asia holds the world’s highest Muslim population. This makes it highly vulnerable to IS threat. South Asia has to evolve collective strategies to combat the spread of IS terrorism and militancy in their midst.

Polio and Ebola are two other non-conventional threats of immediate relevance to South Asia that urgently need collective action. Thanks to religious fundamentalists’ objection polio vaccination there had been a huge setback in fighting polio in Pakistan. After 13 years Pakistan has recorded the highest number of 202 polio cases this year. This is not only a national emergency for Pakistan but for South Asia, particularly India, where polio has been eradicated with remarkable success after relentless campaigns.

One can keep on adding to the list of such non-conventional threats to nations including the Western penchant to slap WTO and intellectual property protocols against competitive pharmaceutical and manufactured products from South Asia.

But will India and Pakistan come together for collective action to tackle these common threats without the aid of the big powers? This still remains the ‘Big Question.’ Nothing much has happened on the thaw expected in India-Pakistan relations after the cordial May-meeting between the leaders of the two countries.

Even as the two nations contemplated resuming formal talks, two hardy perennials India-Pakistan wrangle – K-issue and terrorism – surfaced again to dissipate their enthusiasm. As a result tragic happenings have continued in Jammu and Kashmir, reeling from the recent devastating floods. Indian media has highlighted that on five people were killed even as they were celebrating the Eid holy festival by firing from across the border. Without entering into a slanging match who triggered it, it is evident the five deaths were as avoidable as the polio attacks in Pakistan.

India-Pakistan polemics including the Kashmir issue are rooted in the seeds of Partition, which divided not only India but the society and people on the basis of religion. While the healing process has made some headway in India thanks to its enduring democracy, Pakistan’s periodic military rule has stifled it from happening. As a result the two countries have fought four wars during the last six and a half decades of existence and its leftovers are holding up rapprochement between the two feuding neighbours. Unless the people rise up to change it, SAARC will continue to remain a paper tiger. Will Modi and Nawaz rise up to the occasion? This remains an open ended question.

Written on October 7, 2014 for South Asia Magazine, Karachi November 1, 2014 issue.

(Col R Hariharan, strategic analyst, is a former MI specialist on South Asia. He is associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies and the South Asia Analysis Group. E-mail: haridirect@gmail.com Blog: http://col.hariharan.info)

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Recent increases in U.S. crude oil production have sparked discussion on how this increase in supply will be used by U.S. refiners, given current limitations on exporting domestic crude. On October 30, EIA released a study that explored the relationships between crude oil and gasoline prices (Figure 1).

Key findings from the analysis include:

• The price of Brent crude oil, an international benchmark, is more important than the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), a domestic benchmark, for determining gasoline prices in all four U.S. regions studied, including the Midwest.
• The effect that a relaxation of current limitations on U.S. crude oil exports would have on U.S. gasoline prices depends on its effect on international crude prices, such as Brent, rather than its effect on domestic crude prices.
• Gasoline is a globally traded commodity, and prices are highly correlated across global spot markets.
• Gasoline supply, demand, and trade in various regions are changing; one effect is that U.S. Gulf Coast and Chicago spot gasoline prices, which are closely linked, are now often the lowest in the world during fall and winter months.

A change in current limitations on crude oil exports could have implications for both domestic and international crude oil prices. Such a relaxation could raise the prices of domestically produced oil. If higher prices for domestic crude were to spur additional U.S. production than might otherwise occur, the increase to global crude oil supply could reduce the global price of crude.

The extent to which domestic crude prices might rise, and global crude prices might fall, depends on a host of factors, including the degree to which current export limitations affect prices received by domestic producers, the sensitivity of future domestic production to price changes, the ability of domestic refiners to absorb domestic production, and the reaction of key foreign producers to changes in the level of U.S. crude production.

Relationships between gasoline and crude oil prices

U.S. retail gasoline prices reflect four key components: the price of crude oil; refining costs and profit margins; retail and distribution costs and profit margins; and taxes. The first two factors tend to be more volatile, causing most of the variation in retail gasoline prices, while the latter two reflect the retail portion and tend to be relatively stable.

A general guideline for how crude oil prices affect gasoline is that a $1-per-barrel change in the price of crude oil translates into a change of about 2.4 cents per gallon of gasoline. (There are 42 gallons in one barrel, and 2.4 cents is about 1/42 of $1.)

While there are many crude oils traded around the globe, two of the major benchmark light sweet crudes are West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and North Sea Brent. Before 2010, there was little reason to specify which crude oil price was more important with respect to effects on domestic gasoline prices, as the two benchmarks traded at similar prices. In mid-2010, more Canadian exports to the U.S. Midwest and increased production in the United States led to transportation constraints, which caused the price of WTI to fall below the Brent price. The surge of domestic production also reduced U.S. crude imports.

However, the lower WTI prices did not result in lower U.S. gasoline prices because, as EIA’s analysis shows, U.S. gasoline prices are more closely linked to the price of Brent. The analysis shows this is the case in all parts of the country, including the Midwest, where the trading hub for WTI is located (Cushing, Oklahoma).

Gasoline itself is also a globally traded commodity, and the United States both imports and exports gasoline and other finished products. Figure 2 shows prices at trading hubs around the world: New York Harbor, U.S. Gulf Coast, and Chicago, as well as Singapore, the Mediterranean, and Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA). These prices trade within a relatively narrow band, and the prices between different points reflect the transportation costs associated with shipping gasoline from exporting markets to importing markets.

Global gasoline supply and demand patterns have been evolving. Gasoline demand in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East has been outpacing gasoline production in those regions. In the United States, demand is declining but refinery production of gasoline has been rising, resulting in increasing exports of U.S. gasoline to the global market. Because of these changes in the market and seasonal fluctuations in U.S. gasoline demand, the gasoline spot prices in the U.S. Gulf Coast or Chicago are now often the lowest in the world during fall and winter months.

While EIA’s new report provides directional insights regarding the implications for U.S. gasoline prices of a possible relaxation of current limitations on crude oil exports, it does not address the extent of any actual change in domestic production or the domestic or international price of crude oil that might follow from a decision to relax or eliminate those limitations. EIA is undertaking further analyses that will examine those issues and expects to report additional results over the coming months.

U.S. gasoline prices average below $3 per gallon for first time since 2010, most diesel fuel prices decline

The U.S. average price for regular gasoline fell six cents to $2.99 per gallon as of November 3, 2014, 27 cents lower than a year ago, and the first U.S. average price below the $3.00-per-gallon mark since December 20, 2010. The East Coast, Midwest, and Gulf Coast prices were all below $3.00 per gallon, falling six cents each to $2.99 per gallon, $2.96 per gallon, and $2.77 per gallon, respectively. The West Coast price fell nine cents to $3.24 per gallon, while the Rocky Mountain price fell six cents to $3.14 per gallon.

The U.S. average price of diesel fuel decreased one cent to $3.62 per gallon, down 23 cents from the same time last year. Only the Midwest price increased, rising by one cent to $3.62 per gallon. The East Coast and Gulf Coast prices fell three cents each, to $3.60 per gallon and $3.53 per gallon, respectively. The West Coast price was down a cent to $3.79 per gallon, while the Rocky Mountain price remained unchanged at $3.71 per gallon.

Propane inventories post slight decline

U.S. propane stocks decreased by 0.1 million barrels last week to 80.1 million barrels as of October 31, 2014, 18.1 million barrels (29.1%) higher than a year ago. Midwest inventories decreased by 0.5 million barrels, while Gulf Coast inventories increased by 0.4 million barrels. Both East Coast inventories and Rocky Mountain/West Coast inventories remained unchanged. Propylene non-fuel-use inventories represented 3.1% of total propane inventories.

Residential heating fuel prices decrease

As of November 3, 2014, residential heating oil prices averaged $3.43 per gallon, about 2 cents per gallon lower than last week, and 39 cents less than last year’s price for the same week. Wholesale heating oil prices averaged nearly $2.70 per gallon, 8 cents per gallon more than last week and almost 31 cents lower when compared to the same time last year.

Residential propane prices decreased by one cent last week to $2.40 per gallon, almost 5 cents less than the price at the same time last year. Wholesale propane prices averaged nearly $1.07 per gallon, 3 cents more than last week’s price and almost 30 cents per gallon lower than the November 4, 2013 price.

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Asia’s Land Locked Developing Countries (LLDCs) need a stable investment-friendly and competitive macroeconomic policy framework, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) said Tuesday, calling for action to promote economic diversification in order to reduce volatility of economic and export growth.

“Policies must maintain a competitive exchange rate, neutralizing tendencies toward appreciation and a stable macroeconomic environment with favorable credit conditions for the promotion of new economic activities,” explained United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP Dr. Shamshad Akhtar, during the launch of the Economic Diversification in Asian LLDCs: Prospects and Challenge report at the Second United Nations Conference on LLDCs, in Vienna, Austria.

ESCAP’s research shows empirical evidence that the more diversified the economy, the higher its GDP and the lower the competition it faces in global markets. Compelling results in the new report reveal that diversification moves in short steps rather than large jumps and that diversification is a path dependent process. What a country produces today influences what sectors can emerge or develop in the immediate future.

“Some pathways can lead to new products, further diversification and improvement in a country’s productive capacity, whilst other paths spin off relatively fewer opportunities, providing less potential for economic growth and diversification,” added Dr. Akhtar during ESCAP’s Side Event on LLDCs Diversification.

Recognizing these challenges, ESCAP has mapped the diversification paths to support policymaking in promoting economic diversification. The Report shows policymakers how to identify paths to diversification and offers a methodology for identifying diversification opportunities.

ESCAP’s analysis identifies the top export markets for potential new products from Asian LLDCs, along with new sectors to increase chances for success in diversification. Most product diversification opportunities for Asian LLDCs exist in five industries: base metals, chemicals, machinery and electrical equipment, plastic and rubber, as well as textiles. Trade links with Europe and North America remain very important, but the Asia-Pacific region also offers about a quarter of the export opportunities for potential new products of these sectors.

In terms of industrial policy, ESCAP recommends that new economic activities be promoted with the appropriate intervention, including industrial estates and economic zones. ESCAP also calls for Asian LLDCs to create a diversified, well-regulated and inclusive financial system that provides access to a variety of services and products in support of private investment for new economic activities.

“Economic Diversification in Asian LLDCs: Prospects and Challenge makes a valuable contribution to the wider policy debates about LLDCs and will help shape the new development agenda for LLDCs for the next decade,” the ESCAP Executive Secretary said.

This Second United Nations Conference on LLDCs is being held from 3 to 5 November 2014 in Vienna, Austria. At the Conference, participants from governments of LLDCs, transit developing countries and donor countries, UN and other international organizations and the private sector have come together to assess the implementation of the Almaty Programme of Action (APoA), with the view to develop a new common action-oriented strategic framework for the next 10 years.

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From 1970 to 2011, US$2 trillion from Latin America and the Caribbean have been funneled to offshore tax havens. It’s money that moves behind the scenes, in illicit financial flows (IFF). These transnational transfers come from three sources of illegal funds: corruption (bribery), money laundering (contraband, trafficking of drugs, weapons, humans, among others) and commercial transactions from major corporations (tax evasion and avoidance, and fraudulent billing).

Year after year, the numbers have increased. According to estimates from the Latin American Network on Debt, Development and Rights (LATINDADD), in 2011 IFF totaled $947 billion in developing countries. Of that, $116 billion left Latin America and the Caribbean.

Seven countries in the region —Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay and Venezuela— were among the 25 countries with the highest levels of capital flight between 2002 and 2011.

The data was released during an annual conference of the International Transparency Coalition (ITC), “Hidden Money, Hidden Resources: Financing Development with Transparency,” held in collaboration with LATINDADD in Lima, Peru, on Oct. 14-15.

“From 2002 to 2011, the IFF cost developing countries $5.9 billion, of which 20 percent results from criminal activity and corruption, while 80 percent results from commercial transactions,” LATINDADD noted, citing studies by Global Financial Integrity (GFI).

Tax havens

One of the keys to understanding IFF is offshore tax havens, where trillions of dollars are hidden. These jurisdictions apply favorable tax structures for companies and non-residents, invoking banking secrecy laws and refusing to cooperate with other tax administrations or foreign legal entities.

Several Caribbean nations are in the Financial Secrecy Index of 81 countries created by the Tax Justice Network, a group of researchers and activists who work on the negative impacts of tax avoidance. Included are independent countries as well as US, British, French, and Dutch territories like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Virgin Islands, Barbados, Bahamas, Aruba, Curacao, Anguilla, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Turks and Caicos, St. Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, Dominica, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Montserrat. Also on the list are Brazil, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Panama, and Uruguay.

According to the Tax Justice Network, “the money routed through the IFF goes, in the majority of cases, through tax havens. These territories or jurisdictions with high fiscal opacity are home to $21-$31 trillion, a figure equivalent to the gross domestic products of the United States and Japan combined.”

One way local subsidiaries of multinational companies evade taxes is through the creation of shell companies in tax havens, where the money is transferred before being sent to headquarters. Jorge Gaggero, director of the Tax Justice Network in Latin America, said that in Argentina, capital flight in 2012 was $28 billion, an amount “equivalent to 4.7 percent of the country´s GDP or 20 percent of the state´s annual investment.”

LATINDADD said that in Peru, the country’s tax authority, SUNAT, found that from 2007 to 2012, operational transfer pricing (the price agreed between two companies related to the transfer of, among other things, goods, services or rights) reached $370 billion, of which 65 percent were international transactions.

The organization said that according to SUNAT, in 2013 income omitted by manipulating transfer prices represented $350 million — meaning $105 million in taxes not paid.

Tax evasion

A report by journalist Raúl Wiener and accountant Juan Torres Polo, released during the ITC meeting, showed that mining firm Yanacocha — a division of multinational US company Newmont Mining and Peruvian company Buenaventura —, avoided $1.2 billion in taxes in its 20 years of operating in the country, including $136 million in 2013 alone. Yanacocha, considered to be South America’s leading gold mining company, is behind the controversial Conga project in the Andean department of Cajamarca, which the local population strongly opposes because of its environmental impact.

“Allegedly, Yanacocha has systematically inflated its accounting costs in order to reduce their tax contribution in the period when gold prices reached the highest peak in the international market,” the report says. “Investment and expenses related to the Conga project (new investment) have been charged to Yanacocha’s operations and recorded before profits and taxes, which means that the state and the [Cajamarca] region have not been receiving part of their taxes to fund the controversial project.”

Last year, the mining firm reported a loss of $562 million on earnings of $1.5 billion; to support this result, it consigned outside of its so-called “normal” costs an exceptional expenditure of more than $1 billion, —which affected 70 percent of its revenues— under the category “Depreciation of long term assets.” This cannot be anything other than one year of the Conga project assets’ depreciation, since Yanacocha has no new assets and is in the process of depleting the ore vein, Wiener y Polo said.

Both ITC, LATINDADD and the Tax Justice Network agree that to tackle capital flight and tax evasion, greater oversight is needed, as well as joint regional policies to push developed countries to take more drastic measures against tax havens and shell corporations.

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By Kaveh L. Afrasiabi

The Iran nuclear talks might be impacted by the results of the US mid-term congressional elections, which have resulted in the Republican Party’s control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Although the final results of these elections are not out yet as of this writing, the mere fact that the Republican Party has picked up at least seven seats in the Senate represents a major setback for President Barack Obama and is bound to weaken his authority during the last two years of his presidency in 2015 and 2016.

But, since the new Republican-controlled Senate does not convene until January, 2015, the White House may now find an added reason to conclude a nuclear agreement with Iran by the November 24 deadline, thus preempting a formidable Congressional opposition. Under the US Constitution, Article II, the US President has the authority to make international agreements and do so by bypassing the approval of Senate as called for in the Constitution’s “treaty clause.” Already, there are reports in the US media that the Obama administration intends to enter into an agreement with Iran without seeking the Congressional approval, thus prompting vocal calls by numerous members of US Congress, including through bi-partisan letters to the White House, requesting an organic role for the Congress in any Iran deal. Although definitely a setback for the Democratic Party and Obama’s presidency in terms of internal US politics, it is far from clear that the Republicans’ congressional victory will have much impact on the US’s conduct of foreign policy. After all, the US history is rife with examples of presidents signing foreign agreements irrespective of opposition by Congress controlled by the opposition party. Recent examples include the Reagan administration and the Clinton administration, sufficiently close to the current administration to serve as relevant policy decisions. Not only that, the Republican Party is split on Iran and there is no consensus on both issues of US-Iran connections in Iraq (against the ISIS threat) and the nuclear issue. Last June, Republican senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain openly clashed on Iran, with Graham suggesting that US and Iran should cooperate to quell rising sectarian violence in Iraq.

One reason why the US election results may spur the White House into added efforts to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran is that the Republican senators led by Mitch McConnell (of Kentucky) might introduce legislation that would call on the president to integrate the lawmakers in the Iran negotiation process. The new head of Senate Foreign Relations Committee will be Bob Corker (of Tennessee), who might inherit the pending anti-Iran legislation sponsored by his predecessor, Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey). Indeed, this points at one of the new complexities introduced by the US election results, that is, the distinct possibility that in the absence of cordial White House-Congress relations in the near future, Congress might pass new legislation preventing the lifting of some Iran sanctions and or imposing other restrictions on White House measures aimed at normalizing relations with Iran. Certainly, this serves as a potential leverage for the pro-Israel lawmakers and lobbyists in Washington, indirectly affecting the White House’s political will with respect to a potential deal with Iran. But even this might motivate the White House to strike a deal with Iran in the next few weeks and thus present the Congress with a scenario that would be difficult to modify, let alone suspend or terminate.

Lest we forget, in the recent past the Democrats initiated some of the most hawkish anti-Iran initiatives in US Congress and, therefore, it would be a mistake to regard the Republicans’ victory as a “game-changer” with respect to Iran. Senator Corker might well engage in some tit-for-tat bargaining with Obama on such foreign policy issues as foreign trade and it is not at all a foregone conclusion that he will lead a spirited challenge to an Iran deal. Any such successful challenge would require the cooperation of Democrats, who are also split on the Iran nuclear issue. Chances are the Republicans will push for an observer group on the Iran talks — that may be too late if a deal is inked by the November deadline. By the same token, the absence of a deal by November and or the talks’ extension into 2015 will likely have adverse effects on the White House’s handling of the issue, by virtue of the pro-Israel lobbyists’ intended effort to trigger a united congressional opposition to any Iran deal, something which has been absent so far. Many Republican senators are on record opposing any Iran deal that falls short of dismantling Iran’s uranium enrichment program, raising the prospect of new sanctions bill without the presidential “waiver authority,” i.e., a new version of the Menendez-Kirk Nuclear Weapons Free Iran Act of 2013, which targeted additional sectors of Iranian economy. From Iran’s vantage point, therefore, any future deal with the US is problematic insofar as the White House’s ability to deliver the promised sanctions relief is concerned. Bypassing Congress by the White House now rather than in the near future therefore makes a lot of sense, thus adding a new sense of urgency to the present on-going talks.

*Kaveh Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of several books on Iran’s foreign policy. His writings have appeared on several online and print publications, including UN Chronicle, New York Times, Der Tagesspiegel, Middle East Journal, Harvard International Review, and Brown’s Journal of World Affairs, Guardian, Russia Today, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, Mediterranean Affairs, Nation, Telos, Der Tageszeit, Hamdard Islamicus, Iranian Journal of International Affairs, Global Dialogue.

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Mid-term elections are over, and the anticipated trouncing of Democrats in Congress took place without a hitch, even if the media selfishly played the uncertainty card. The sad reality: the United States is a nation divided alongside economic lines of haves and have-nots, and not ideology… with the leadership of both parties finding common ground in a solitary, non-domestic issue: the maintenance and perpetuation of the empire. And, that’s the only political preserver this drowning, unpopular president, Barack Obama, can hang on to for what is sure to be a political legacy which cultivated mediocrity, totally lacking backbone and leadership.

Even if Obama is personally anti-war, he is likely to yield to warmongering voices which now will have an even greater echo in Congress: the voices of John McCain, Lindsey Graham and other bellicosarians in the Senate who don’t seem to mind, and actually insist, in bringing America to the portals of a nuclear war.

Barack Obama is running the risk of mistakenly looking in a mirror and seeing FDR’s image as he deals in global affairs; and, as ego-feeding as that may appear to this unpopular president, that could prove to be a catastrophic misread not just for him, but for the rest of us living in the United States, as well as others around the world who have politically cast their lot with the United States.

Obama finds himself looking at Russia in much the same way as FDR did looking at Japan in 1941. However, the stakes being waged today are different, and far more extreme, from those of seven-plus decades ago; and the consequences, far more ominous.

In July 1941 the US imposed an oil embargo on Japan, demanding that it get out of China, de facto curbing any hegemonic aspirations or influence that nation might have or hope to have in Asia. The economic reality forced by the American sanctions on Japan left the Land of the Rising Sun with just two options in the summer-fall of 1941: surrender its aspirations (which compensated for the Japanese homeland very limited natural resources) and capitulate to the wishes of the United States; or, resort to war… which became its only plausible answer, one which resulted in the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, that year.

Seventy-three years later, America once again inflicts economic sanctions on another nation, Russia; a nation solely trying to defend its borders, perhaps also exercising the natural desire to influence, help create economic synergy in the Eurasian geopolitical region.

Those aspirations of self-preservation and economic success should be judged at face value, and not antagonistically, as the US is now doing with extreme, venomous propaganda worthy of admiration by the likes of Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda under Adolf Hitler. The government in the US, and the highly-influenced US mainstream media, has made Russia the enemy, and Vladimir Putin, the anti-hero to be feared by the West, the personification of evil. And, naturally, the United States is exacting servitude from the European Union and NATO – the military mask worn for almost seven decades by the Pentagon to show pseudo-diversity in running the empire – in its incursion of the hinterlands in Eastern Europe.

Sanctions are just another form of warfare, where the weapons can inflict destruction and pain, and be just as explosive. Their history can be millennially traced back, some with success, others with failure and a boomerang effect. One thing we can be sure of in modern times: sanctions will prove to yield long term ill will, in many cases providing multiplying seeds of vengeance and terrorism which we may not confront now but our children and their children certainly will. And the United States has seeded the world with this mass criminal punishment like no other nation… throughout the Middle East, Cuba, and now trying to destroy Russia’s emerging economy. America has for decades plowed and seeded hostility with sanctions in fertile grounds where terrorism will thrive and come back to haunt us. And, foolishly, the US continues this idiotic practice.

America does not need a Sanctioner-in-Chief enacting foolish edicts from the White House, but a leader in international cooperation, a leader that will safeguard this nation’s safety and legitimate intere sts, but also respect other nations… and their legitimate interests.
After this mid-term elections which has given the upper hand to the more hawkish brand of the two political warmongering parties, Barack Obama is really going to be put to the test… to choose between war and peace, at the holocaustic level; and that will turn out to be the most important decision of his presidency. As of right now, the US has de facto declared war in Russia… and, unless Obama lifts the sanctions now in-place, the economic fate in Russia will soon likely determine that nation’s willingness to bet all its nuclear chips and call America’s bet at the political international poker table.

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By Waleed Abu al-Khair

Kurdish activists are stepping up campaigns against the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL) on social media, in an effort to shed light on the crimes the group is committing on a daily basis, among them the kidnap, rape, slave trade and killing of women.

Kurdish activist Ari Murad, a member of a Kurdish campaign that confronts ISIL and its actions, in October posted a video that depicts him “selling” four girls in Leicester Square in London.

The young girls shackled in iron chains are displayed to passers-by in the street, in a mock auction that starts with a girl no older than 14.

“We have four women for you here today, and we are here to sell them courtesy of ISIL,” auctioneer Murad says through a microphone to attract a crowd. The four shackled girls stand behind him and he appears to treat them with marked violence and cruelty to force them to obey his orders.

The video has now received nearly three quarters of a million views on YouTube.

Murad said his campaign aims to shed light on what is happening in his country and to draw the world’s attention to the danger it faces as a consequence of the expansion of this group, and of the need to confront it.

The UN reported in early October that 150 unmarried women and girls were transported in August from Iraq to Syria and “gifted” to fighters or sold as sex slaves, in addition to other offenses that may amount to war crimes.

‘Online army’

Kurdish media activist Mustafa Ismail, a native of the Syrian city of Kobani and an active participant in the online war against ISIL, said the group uses social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter to post photos and videos in a bid to gain supporters .

“Herein lies the importance of organised campaigns directed against ISIL’s [social media] pages and accounts,” he told Al-Shorfa.

Kobani youth took notice of ISIL’s exploitation of social media, he said, “so they formed the Kobani online army, which was able to shut down hundreds of accounts and pages belonging to ISIL, its supporters and those who share its views”.

The online army was “thus was able to weaken ISIL’s online front, in conjunction with the on-going battle between Kurdish fighters and ISIL elements on the ground”, Ismail said.

Anti-ISIL online campaigns are crucial in the fight against terrorism, he said.

Ismail called on activists to reject pages and accounts that call for violence, disrespect human dignity and whose sole purpose is “to impose untenable concepts and opinions that pose a danger to the region’s future and have passed their expiration date”.

Mazen Zaki, director of the new media division at Ibn al-Waleed Studies and Field Research Centre in Egypt, said Kobani’s online campaign continues to intensify.

The battle appears to be threefold, he told Al-Shorfa. On one front, activists report social media accounts so administrators can shut them down, with Kurdish activists and their supporters helping “shut down hundreds of ISIL-affiliated accounts by reporting on their promotion of racism, hatred and crime”, which violate social networking sites’ terms of use.

The second front involves posting breaking news from battlegrounds such as Kobani so as to counter the false news posted by ISIL-affiliated accounts, which often disseminate fake and fabricated news, he said.

On the third front, Kurdish activists carry out activities in international capitals, disseminating videos and news related to events on the ground and delivering them to a variety of media outlets, Zaki said.

By Zaki’s assessment, the efforts of these Kurdish activists have proven effective, particularly Murad’s widely-circulated video.

Countering ISIL’s media machine

The online war being waged against ISIL is designed to a great extent to counter the group’s media machine, said Aqil Tammo, a new media specialist and activist who resides in Germany.

ISIL forces its fighters to frequent and be active on online networking sites and post directed news, he told Al-Shorfa.

The international support and sympathy for the battle of Kobani shows that Kurdish and international online campaigns are succeeding, he said.

Some Kurdish activists have gained prominence as eyewitnesses and citizen journalists reporting from the ground for major international television stations by virtue of their personal efforts, Tammo said.

Their efforts aim to counter ISIL’s media machine, he said, which disseminates false information about battles and distorted religious and cultural views.

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By MD Al-Sulami

Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh has slammed the terrorists who gunned down seven people this week, for trying to destabilize and divide the country.

“What happened in Al-Ahsa is an example of brutal aggression and a great injustice. This is carried out by sick minds seeking to incite fitna between people, God forbid,” he said.

He said these acts were being carried out by those who want “to open the door to sectarian conflict so that we kill and destroy each other,” he warned in a televised speech on Tuesday.

“We live in one state, secure and stable under a single government that brings us together,” the grand mufti said. He called on the government to punish those responsible in the harshest possible manner.

GCC Secretary-General Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani said: “The attack violates the basic principles of Islam. It was aimed at causing division and sedition. However, the terrorists will not succeed in achieving their nefarious objectives.”

Police found the body of one of the attackers in Buraidah on Wednesday. It was not clear who killed him. This means that three terrorists have lost their lives. The other two were killed in a shootout in Shaqra on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, thousands of people attended the funeral prayers Wednesday of two security officers killed in the shootout with the terrorists.

Prayers for Capt. Muhammad Al-Enezi and Cpl. Turki Al-Rasheed were held in Hail and in Buraidah. They were slain during a raid on a terrorist hideout in Mahlmin district in north Hail on Tuesday.

The two officers were members of the Qassim Emergency Force that conducted the raid in connection with Monday’s shootout in Al-Ahsa, which saw masked gunmen kill seven people.

Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Naif called on the family of Al-Rasheed in Hail and conveyed the condolences of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah and Crown Prince Salman. He later visited Buraidah and offered condolences to the family of Al-Enezi.

Hail Gov. Prince Saud bin Abdul Muhsin joined the funeral prayers for Al-Rasheed on Wednesday afternoon. Prince Saud offered his condolences to the bereaved family and said that citizens should be proud of their loyal service to their country. Undersecretary at the prince’s office, Saad Al-Bogami, also attended the prayers.

Meanwhile, security sources said that investigators had arrested 20 people in connection with the Al-Ahsa attacks. One person was freed after being arrested on 12 counts of terror-related charges.
According to the sources, members of the public had helped the security agencies arrest the suspects. Some have been released on bail.

Eyewitnesses said police conducted a raid in the Rawabi district in Riyadh, in connection with the Al-Ahsa attack. After police cordoned off and secured roads in the district, they heard gunshots. It was not clear whether it was warning shots or an exchange of fire.

A high-level security source, quoted by Asharq Al-Awsat, a sister publication of Arab News, on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media, said that some members of this “terrorist cell” had previously been arrested or convicted on terror-related charges.

The post Terrorist Attempt To ‘Destabilize, Divide’ Saudi Arabia Denounced appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Rajeev Sharma

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is confident of repeating its stellar performance in the just-concluded assembly polls in Maharashtra and Haryana in the two more poll-bound states, Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand, the results of which will be out on Dec. 23.

But even bigger political challenge and opportunity has come up for the BJP with Delhi too now due for assembly polls, likely in February 2015. While the BJP has successfully installed its governments in Haryana and Maharashtra, the latter for the first time ever, the right-wing Hindu nationalist party is hoping to wrest Jharkhand too from the opposition and emerge much stronger in Jammu and Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority state in India.

Strong performances in Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir will definitely improve the BJP’s position in the Rajya Sabha, one of the two houses in Indian Parliament; the other being the Lok Sabha. The more states a political party rules, the better strength it commands in the Rajya Sabha.

It is crucial for the BJP government to beef up its strength in the Rajya Sabha in near term to push ahead with its ambitious reforms, which need to be approved by both houses of the Parliament. That is why winning more and more states and bringing them under the BJP rule is of key importance for the Modi government, a strategy it is consciously employing.

However, winning Delhi assembly elections goes far beyond this strategy of beefing up its strength in the Rajya Sabha, as far as the BJP is concerned.

Though small in terms of size, Delhi is highly prestigious. Normally, political parties try to follow the “Delhi to New Delhi” political route, the former implying the Delhi state assembly while the latter connoting the central government.

The BJP has already captured New Delhi in the May 2014 general elections and would now be desperate to add Delhi to its kitty. But Delhi presents a formidable challenge to both BJP and Prime Minister Modi. No, it is not because the Congress, decimated by the BJP in the recent general elections, is on a resurgent mode. On the contrary, the Congress party is continuing with its downward slide.

In both Maharashtra and Haryana, the Congress finished number three, for the first time in the history of independent India.

The Congress is likely to continue with its losing streak in Jammu and Kashmir, though it is sure to give a tough fight to the BJP in Jharkhand but only in alliance with two regional parties — Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal and Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United). Modi’s problem in Delhi is not the Congress party, which is likely to finish third in Delhi assembly polls as well, given the current political scenario. The biggest problem for Modi in Delhi is Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). It is only because of the AAP factor that in the past five months the Modi government could not take a decision on the fate of Delhi government. The BJP tried its best to reach the magic figure of 36 in the 70-member assembly but then it realized that the numbers game is so badly stuck that even by hook or crook it was not possible to form a BJP government in Delhi.

Moreover, any further machinations by the BJP to form the government would only sully the party’s image and it would be politically incorrect to continue with such efforts. That is why PM Modi and BJP president Amit Shah decided to go for the only viable option: Fresh elections. Delhi has been under President’s rule since Kejriwal resigned in a huff as Delhi chief minister in February 2014, 49 days after he was installed as the chief minister after the December 2013 assembly elections. Even Kejriwal realizes that his resignation was a monumental blunder and has been urging Delhi voters to pardon him one last time. However, many people of Delhi who voted for him in the 2013 elections feel that Kejriwal’s resignation was an act of cowardice and he lacks leadership abilities and therefore still continue to be miffed with him.

Kejriwal made blunders after blunders. He fielded as many as 440 candidates on behalf of his party in the general elections but ended up only with just four seats, far lesser than the number of slaps he received from irate people during the highly acerbic campaign.

Worse, he contested against Modi from Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) without caring to forge some sort of understanding from his non-BJP opponents. Thus he stretched his party’s human and financial resources beyond limits. In short, he bit much more than he could chew.

But since his party’s rout in the general elections, Kejriwal has definitely sobered up. He refused to contest Maharashtra and Haryana assembly polls despite the party’s units in the two states clamored for it. His reason was that he now just wants to focus on Delhi, the cradle of AAP movement. This is surely not a good omen for Modi and the BJP.

The post Can Modi Help The BJP Conquer Delhi? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

(RFE/RL) — Pakistani police have arrested more than 40 suspects in connection with the killing of a Christian couple accused of desecrating the Koran.

Authorities say a Muslim mob beat Shehzad Masih and his wife, Shama, to death and burned their bodies on November 4 in the Punjab province town of Kot Radha Kishan, in the latest example of mob violence against minorities accused of blasphemy.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif called the murders “an unacceptable crime.”

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has formed a committee he says will fast-track the investigation and ordered police to beef up security in Christian neighborhoods.

Blasphemy is a hugely sensitive issue in the majority Muslim country, with even unproven allegations often prompting mob violence.

The post Pakistan: Dozens Arrested Over Killing Of Christian Couple appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By C. Raja Mohan

An explanation often is worse than the presumed offence. Statements from Colombo and Beijing this week on the frequent appearance of Chinese submarines and ships at Sri Lankan ports are likely to worsen New Delhi’s concerns rather than blunt them. Both Colombo and Beijing have countered India’s concerns by stating that there is nothing unusual about Chinese naval visits to Lankan ports.

“It is an international common practice for a navy submarine to stop for refuelling and crew refreshment at an overseas port,” an official from China’s defence ministry told China’s news agency Xinhua. A Sri Lankan navy spokesperson did acknowledge the Chinese vessels’ arrival at the Colombo port last week. He said “a submarine and a warship have docked at Colombo harbour” and added that this is “nothing unusual”. “Since 2010, 230 warships have called at Colombo port from various countries on goodwill visits and for refuelling and crew refreshment,” the spokesman said.

Delhi’s issue is not with the practice of international port calls in Lanka. The problem for India is that China is not just another country. Given India’s security problems with China on its northern frontiers, it is extremely sensitive to potential Chinese naval presence on its maritime frontiers to the south. Equally important is the nature of India’s own security partnership with Sri Lanka. Delhi and Colombo have had a longstanding understanding that Lanka will not allow foreign military presence on its territory that could be inimical to Indian interests.

What Colombo and Beijing are telling Delhi is that Chinese naval presence in Sri Lanka is now routine and India should get used to it. Delhi quite clearly will find it hard to digest.

Bases and places

That China’s naval profile in the Indian Ocean will continue to grow is now beyond doubt. But the security establishment in Delhi has good reasons not to jump to the conclusion that Sri Lanka is about to give a naval “base” to China.

First, there is nothing to suggest that the PLA Navy is now looking at military bases of the traditional kind, where a major power stations military personnel, weapons and other equipment to allow combat operations from the territory of another country. The proposition that China is acquiring a “string of pearls”, or a series of military facilities, all across the Indian Ocean littoral has gained considerable traction in India. The story on the ground is a little more nuanced.

At this juncture, China has focused on gaining access to “pit-stops” all across the Indian Ocean littoral that will allow its navy to conduct “far sea operations”. Since the end of 2008, the Chinese navy has been conducting counter-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden. Chinese naval squadrons on their way in and out of the Gulf of Aden have been calling at a number of ports, including Colombo and Karachi, in the subcontinent. China has recently acquired a resupply facility in the Seychelles, located astride the sea lines of communication in the western Indian Ocean.

Analysts say that the Chinese navy could, in the near term, move beyond commercial “pit-stops” and seek more reliable and durable access to dual-use facilities that will make its operations in the Indian Ocean more sustainable. The most likely place for such a dual-use facility could be Karachi in Pakistan. Shared strategic interests, longstanding bilateral military cooperation, the transfer of Chinese naval equipment and the availability of facilities for repair and maintenance in Karachi could make Pakistan the natural host nation for China’s first overseas naval facility.

Colombo calculus

How far Lanka might go in its naval collaboration with China is linked to the nature of Delhi’s relations with Colombo. If Lanka is playing the China card, Beijing is happy to take full advantage. What we don’t know is how Delhi might respond if Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa overplayed his hand.

During his visit to Colombo last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced plans to deepen defence cooperation with Sri Lanka. Xi also declared that China will not interfere in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka and will not tolerate that by others (read India’s approach on the question of Tamil minority rights in the island republic). Rajapaksa, in turn, has enthusiastically endorsed China’s plans to build a Maritime Silk Road in the Indian Ocean. If Delhi wants to limit or reverse Colombo’s strategic tilt towards China, it should start with a comprehensive review of its policy towards Sri Lanka.

(The writer is a Distinguished Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi and a Contributing Editor for ’The Indian Express’)

Courtesy : The Indian Express, November 5, 2014

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Lurking in the background of world soccer body FIFA’s talks with Qatar Airways to replace its Dubai rival Emirates as a sponsor is the escalating hostility between Qatar and the United Arab Emirates as a result of their divergent attitudes towards political Islam.

Officially, Emirates’ decision to end its $200 million relationship with FIFA is a result of its announcement three years ago that the airline is restructuring its sponsorships, which also include soccer clubs Arsenal, Real Madrid, Paris Saint Germaine (PSG) and Hamburger SV.

The announcement came a year after Emirates emerged as the most vocal of the soccer body’s sponsors in expressing concern about FIFA’s mushrooming corruption scandals involving disgraced FIFA executive committee member and then Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president Mohammed Bin Hammam, a Qatari national, and question marks about the integrity of the successful Russian and Qatari bids to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

Emirates said at the time that it was “disappointed.” Emirates was however uncharacteristically silent when in the last year various sponsors expressed concern about the negative publicity FIFA was generating as a result of mass protests in Brazil in the run-up to this year’s World Cup and the soccer body’s unresolved transparency and accountability issues. In a statement, the airline said it was parting ways with FIFA because the soccer body’s proposed contract extending the sponsorship arrangement had not met its expectations.

FIFA’s tarnished image is without doubt a major reason why Emirates alongside Sony is seeking to disassociate itself from the soccer body. Yet, it is hard to disassociate state-owned Emirates’ decision from the UAE’s deteriorating relations with Qatar that has led to the incarceration in the UAE of Qatari nationals on charges of spying, an environment in which Emiratis are more reluctant to visit Qatar, and UAE’s investment of millions of dollars in efforts to undermine its Gulf rival’s image and credibility.

In that environment, Emirates is unlikely to want to have appeared as a sponsor when Qatar hosts the World Cup in eight years’ time. A litmus test for what Emirates’ motives are will be whether Emirates also alters its relationship with PSG, which is owned by Qatar. Emirati officials insist that their country’s economic and commercial decisions are not effected by political disputes with partners.

In a statement on its website, Emirates reiterated that “soccer is a truly global sport and consequently has always been an important strand in Emirates’ sponsorship portfolio … Emirates’ sponsorship of FIFA is central to its soccer strategy, facilitating connection with football fans across the world.”

The rift between the UAE and Qatar runs deep. The UAE alongside Saudi Arabia and Bahrain withdrew its ambassador from Doha in March in a so far failed effort to force Qatar to halt its support for the Muslim Brotherhood. That fai lu re appears to have prompted the UAE to step up pressure on Qatar as part of its more activist foreign policy aimed at countering political Islam

In July, the UAE backed the establishment of the Muslim Council of Elders (MCE) in a bid to counter Sheikh Qaradawi’s International Union of Muslim Scholars as well as Qatar’s support for political change in the Middle East and North Africa as long as it does not include the Gulf. The MCE promotes a Sunni Muslim tradition of obedience to the ruler rather than activist elements of the Salafis who propagate a return to 7th century life as it was at the time of the Prophet Mohammed and his immediate successors.

The UAE, despite publicly backing Qatar against calls that it be deprived of its right to host the 2022 World Cup because of alleged wrongdoing in its successful bid and the sub-standard working and living conditions of foreign workers, has covertly worked against the Gulf state. Qatar in September briefly detained two British human rights activists who were investigating human and labour rights in the Gulf state. The detentions exposed a network of apparently Emirati-backed human rights groups in Norway, including the Global Network for Rights and Development (GNRD), and France that seemingly sought to polish the UAE’s image while tarnishing that of Qatar. The Brits of Nepalese origin were acting on behalf, a Norway-based group with alleged links to the UAE.

The GNRD’s International Human Rights Rank Indicator (IHRRI) listed the UAE at number 14 as the Arab country most respectful of human rights as opposed to Qatar that it ranked at number 94. The ranking contradicts reports by human rights groups, including the United Nations Human Rights Council (OHCHR), which earlier this year said it had credible evidence of torture of political prisoners in the UAE and questioned the independence of the country’s judiciary. Egypt’s State Information Service reported in December that GNRD had supported the banning of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization and called for an anti-Brotherhood campaign in Europe.

The New York Times and The Intercept have since revealed that the UAE, the world’s largest spender on lobbying in the United States in 2013, had engaged a lobbying firm to plant anti-Qatar stories in American media. The firm, Camstoll Group, is operated by former high-ranking US Treasury officials who had been responsible for relations with Gulf state and Israel as well as countering funding of terrorism.

The New York Times reported that Camstoll’s public disclosure forms “filed as a registered foreign agent, showed a pattern of conversations with journalists who subsequently wrote articles critical of Qatar’s role in terrorist fund-raising.” The Intercept asserted that Camstoll was hired less than a week after it was established in late 2012 by Abu Dhabi-owned Outlook Energy Investments, LLC with a retainer of $400,000 a month.

UAE opposition to Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood dates back at least a decade. Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Armed Forces Chief of Staff Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed bin Zayed Al Nahayan warned US diplomats already in 2004 that “we are having a (culture)=0 war with the Muslim Brotherhood in this country,” according to US diplomatic cables disclosed by Wikileaks.

In 2009. Sheikh Mohamed went as far as telling US officials that Qatar is “part of the Muslim Brotherhood.” He suggested that a review of Al Jazeera employees would show that 90 percent were affiliated with the Brotherhood. Other UAE officials privately described Qatar as “public enemy number 3”, after Iran and the Brotherhood.

The post Sponsorship Of FIFA: A New Front In Gulf Political Rivalry – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Spanish civil engineering, construction and infrastructure companies are winning more big contracts abroad.

By William Chislett

A spate of major contracts won over the last month in Australia, Brazil and the US has strengthened Spain’s already commanding position in the global infrastructure market. The potentially most interesting development is Ferrovial’s take-over bid for Australia’s Transfield Services, as it is a stepping stone to China.

Analysis

Background
Anyone who has been coming to Spain over the last 30 years can testify to the striking transformation of the country’s infrastructure, with the building of a network of world-class motorways, airports and a high-speed railway line, the second largest in the world after China. If any criticism can be made it is that excessive emphasis was placed on improving infrastructure and not enough on enhancing human capital, as the country’s long economic crisis and an unemployment rate of 23.7% continues to reveal.

What is generally less well known is the success of Spanish companies in winning flagship infrastructure contracts abroad, including the building of the high-speed railway line between Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia and the widening of the Panama Canal, to name just a few (see Figure 1).

Such contracts, together with acquisitions by Spanish companies and banks, are enhancing the country’s global presence. Spain is currently ranked fifth in the world in terms of its degree of internationalisation, with an exposure to overseas countries (measured as trade plus direct investments over GDP) of 166%, similar to Germany and higher than France, according to a recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (pwc).[1]

Figure 1. Major infrastructure works led by Spanish companies

Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Co-operation and companies.

The origin of this extraordinary success, which has helped the companies weather the severe downturn in Spain’s once booming construction and infrastructure sector, can be dated back to the late 1960s and 1970s when the process of using toll roads to build infrastructure began as the country’s mass tourism industry was in the throes of being established. Unlike France and Italy, however, Spain did not choose the model of having state-owned companies develop roads and opted for a mainly private sector model.

Another factor was that the roads began to be open to the public in the early 1970s before energy-dependent Spain was dealt a blow by the oil crisis. The government offered to buy back the shares in the under-used toll roads from companies, but they decided to hang on as the contracts for the concessions were long-term. When the crisis ended and the market improved, the roads proved to be profitable.

All of this was valuable experience, particularly after Spain joined the EU in 1986 and the euro zone in 1999 and the country felt the full blast of competition. This led companies to expand abroad. The domestic market had also become too small.

Latin America was a natural first choice for Spanish companies wishing to expand. As well as the companies’ own push factors, there were several pull factors. Two of them were purely economic: liberalisation and privatisation opened up sectors of the Latin American economy that were hitherto off limits, and there was an ongoing need for capital to develop the region’s generally poor infrastructure. Two are cultural: the first is the common language and the ease, therefore, with which management styles can be transferred. Another attraction is the sheer size of the Latin American market and its degree of underdevelopment. Spanish executives were ideally suited to handling new businesses in Latin America, as they had gained a lot of experience of how to compete in industries under deregulation in their own country. Lastly, financing for these companies became much cheaper after Spain joined the euro.

The first toll-road concession in North America was gained by Cintra, a subsidiary of Ferrovial, in 1999 in conjunction with Australia’s Macquaire Bank when it won the tender for Toronto’s Highway 407 –a 99-year-contract and the largest privatisation in Canada’s history–. The contract eased Cintra’s path into the US where in 2004 it purchased the rights to improve and operate the Chicago Skyway, the city’s only toll road, for US$1.83 billion, for the next 99 years.

Spanish companies have gradually gained contracts in many other areas of infrastructure apart from toll roads. In 2013 they won contracts abroad worth more than €35 billion; their portfolio of international projects tops €75 billion. More than 80% of the big companies’ portfolios comprise contracts abroad. This compares with spending on public works in Spain, which plummeted from €39.8 billion in 2008 to €6 billion in 2012.

For several years there have been more Spanish companies in the annual ranking of the world’s top transportation developers by the US publication Public Works Financing than any other country. The latest ranking, released on 4 November, has six Spanish companies in the top 12 and another three make the top 39 (see Figures 2 and 3).

Figure 2. Ranking of the world’s 12 largest transportation developers

(1) Developers are ranked by the number of road, rail, port and airport concessions over US$50 million in investment value that they have developed worldwide, alone or in joint venture, and are currently operating or have under construction as of 1 October 2014.
Source: Public Works Financing.

Figure 3. Developers ranked by invested capital (1985-2014)

(1) The sum of the original investment, in nominal dollars, of all of a company’s transportation P3 projects that it has financed and put under construction and/or operation, or acquired and improved, from 1985 to 1 October 2014. The invested capital number represents the total amount of public funds and privately managed capital assembled by an equity developer to deliver public services from publicly owned transportation projects. May large P3 projects are developed by a consortium of companies, which results in some double counting of projects between the firms listed here. It includes Ferrovial’s 2006 acquisition, upgrade and management of BAA’s UK airports, using a US$24.3 billion enterprise value.
Source: Public Works Financing.

The latest successes
The latest companies to do well abroad are Somague, a subsidiary of Sacyr, which is part of the consortium that won a €490 million contract to build part of the metro in São Paulo. This is Somague’s fourth contract for the city’s metro network. ACS, the world’s fourth-largest construction company, is to build and operate for 35 years a toll road in Portsmouth, Ohio. It beat off a US company and Spain’s Ferrovial to win the €435 million contract.ACS entered the US in 2006 and has projects worth around €7 billion. In Colombia, OHL was awarded the first toll road concession contract, and in Australia Acciona is part of the consortium for the Sydney light rail project.

The potentially most interesting development is that of Ferrovial, which launched this month a €680 million take-over bid for Transfield Services, the Australian outsourcing and construction services company that runs offshore immigration centres.Transfield rejected the offer, saying it did not reflect the underlying value of its shares.

The offer came a week after Ferrovial joined Macquarie of Australia to take over Glasgow, Aberdeen and Southampton airports in the UK from its partners in Heathrow Airport Holdings (HAH), previously called British Airports Authority (BAA). Ferrovial took control of BAA in 2006 and later reduced its stake to 25% in order to lower its debt load and strengthen its financial position at a time of recession in Spain. It is now on the acquisition trail again.

The move by Ferrovial, which previously held stakes in Sydney Airport, is part of an even more ambitious strategy to gain a foothold in China. Its bold venture, assuming it is successful, follows the acquisition by Spain’s ACS of Leighton Holdings, Australia’s biggest construction company, with a major share of the country’s market, covering commercial building and public and private infrastructure from desalination plants to road, rail and port projects. Ferrovial was part of one of the unsuccessful consortiums that tendered for Melbourne’s East West Link project, which was won by the one including Spain’s Acciona.

The Australian government appears keen to attract foreign companies to build projects, although its tender processes are longer and more expensive than European ones.

Conclusion

Spain has consolidated a notable and leading position in the world infrastructure market and there is every reason to believe it will go from strength to strength.

About the author:
William Chislett
Associate Analyst at the Elcano Royal Institute and author of three books on Spain published by the Institute. Oxford University Press published his latest book on Spain in 2013 | @WilliamChislet3

Source:
This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute.

[1] See España ‘goes global’.

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By R. S. Kalha

Last Friday when the Chinese President Xi Jinping inaugurated the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank [AIIB] at Beijing along with 21 other member countries, including India, a new and a highly significant financial institution emerged on the geo-strategic horizon of Asia. To give it broader scope, the Chinese have invited and also won the support of some wealthy West Asian nations, such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The proposal for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) was first presented publicly by Premier Li Keqiang at the Boao Forum for Asia in April 2013. Nonetheless, the Chinese Finance Minister, Lou Jiwei would have us believe that this event is entirely altruistic and that:

The AIIB will be a multilateral development organization for Asia established on intergovernmental lines, and it will function in accordance with the models and principles of other multilateral development banks. It aims to boost economic development and regional economic cooperation by supporting investment in infrastructure and other projects in Asian countries. The new bank will become a professional and highly efficient investment and financing platform for infrastructure facilities, and will meet the demand for further development.1.

And yet close US allies in Asia such as Japan, South Korea, and Australia opted to stay out under intense US pressure. The case of Indonesia under the leadership of its new President Joko Widodo also staying out is rather unique; for did they too fall under US pressure or was it simply a case that the new government had no time to take such a crucial decision? That the US was not pleased with these developments had been known for long.

Several major news outlets, including the Financial Times and The New York Times, have carried reports in recent days highlighting the Obama administration’s attempt to convince other world powers to stay away from the Chinese led bank for a host of reasons.2. Senior United States officials and representatives of other governments involved have disclosed that in conversations with China’s potential partners, US officials, including US Secretary of State John Kerry, have lobbied against AIIB with unexpected determination and engaged in a vigorous campaign to persuade important allies to shun the project.3. It is reported that the United States Treasury Department has criticized AIIB as a ‘deliberate effort to undercut’ the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank; international financial institutions that are dominated by the United States and Japan. The US Treasury Department would have us believe that the new bank would ‘fail to meet environmental standards, procurement requirements and other safeguards adopted by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, including protection intended to prevent the forced removal of vulnerable populations from their lands’.4. The US has fought long and hard to have its ‘norms’ reflected in the programs of International financial institutions.

Surprisingly the US sponsored President of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, a Korean-American national told reporters last Friday at a breakfast in Washington hosted by The Christian Science Monitor, that he simply did not spend much time worrying about such risks and that the White House’s political push has carried little weight within the World Bank. Asserting that the bank is ‘not a political organization’ and that it is ‘actually in our articles of agreement that we don’t get involved in domestic politics,’ Kim declined to elaborate the US position but added that it is for Washington to clarify its stand on the Chinese bank. As for the World Bank’s position, he said, ‘my sense is that we can work with [the Chinese] very well and that the Chinese government began talking with us very early on, really sort of immediately after they had this idea that, especially in Asia, there’s nowhere near enough money for infrastructure investment.’5.

The crux of the matter is however different for the US sees the establishment of the AIIB as an attempt by China to pull South- East Asian countries closer to its orbit and a soft-power play that promises economic benefits while refurbishing its image among its Asian neighbours. This is despite the fact that neither the World Bank nor the ADB are in a position to cater to the rising demands of Asian countries for infrastructure funding. In 2009 the Asian Development Bank estimated that the Asia-Pacific region would need as much as US$8 trillion in investments for physical infrastructure by 2020 — an amount that exceeds what the ADB or the World Bank can muster. Aware of US efforts to stymie the establishment of AIIB at an incipient stage perhaps for reasons other than economic; Jin Liqun the proposed Chinese leader of the AIIB and former head of China’s sovereign wealth fund (CICC),in an unprecedented meeting pressed the US Ambassador to China, Max Baucus, that the US should ‘soften its opposition’ to the bank. It remains to be seen whether the US will retain its adamant position with President Obama slated to visit Beijing shortly for a multi-lateral event but where a crucial Sino-US dialogue is to be held; preparations for which were initiated when the US National Security Advisor, Susan Rice visited Beijing and had met the Chinese President Xi Jinping.

It is not in the public domain whether the US pushed hard with India not to join the AIIB and what had been the Indian response. However going by the fact that India was one of the 21 countries present at the signing ceremony at Beijing; the response to the US request, if any, would obviously have been negative. The moot point however to note is whether India sees this as a purely economic event or whether it attaches any political connotations to it; as have the US and its close allies in Asia. The representation at the bureaucratic- Joint Secretary level- indicates that India is aware of this dilemma. The Chinese leadership no doubt would be quite pleased with the choice made by India; but the geo-strategic implications of this move, despite strenuous US opposition, should not be lost.

Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India

1. Zhang Yunbi, China Daily, 27 October 2014.

2. Guy Taylor. The Washington Times, 26 October 2014

3. Jane Perlez. NYT, 9 October 2014.

4. Op. cit.

5. Op. Cit. The Washington Times, 26 October 2014.

6. Zhang Yunbi, China Daily, 27 October 2014.

7. Guy Taylor. The Washington Times, 26 October 2014

8. Jane Perlez. NYT, 9 October 2014.

9. Op. cit.

10. Op. Cit. The Washington Times, 26 October 2014.

Originally published by Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (www.idsa.in) at http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/Geo-strategicImplicationsoftheAsianInfrastructure_rskalha_311014.html

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U.S. officials say North Korea has released detained Americans Kenneth Bae and Matthew Todd Miller, and they are now on their way home.

U.S. National Intelligence Director James Clapper was said to be accompanying the two U.S. citizens back to the United States, after discussing their release with North Korean authorities. The U.S. had repeatedly called on North Korea to free the men on humanitarian grounds.

President Barack Obama welcomed the two men’s release, praising Clapper “for doing a great job on what obviously was a challenging mission.” Obama commented Saturday, just after nominating Loretta Lynch as his next attorney general.

Saturday’s announcement by the State Department came less than three weeks after the unexpected release of another American, Jeffrey Fowle. Pyongyang had held the Ohio man for nearly six months after he left a Bible at a nightclub.

After Fowle’s October 21 release, Bae and Miller were the last Americans being held by the communist state.

Bae, 46, is from Lynnwood, Washington. He was arrested two years ago, on November 3, 2012, while leading a group of tourists in the North’s northern city of Rason.

Later, Pyongyang sentenced him to 15 years of hard labor for committing “hostile acts” against the regime, making him the longest-held American in North Korea in recent years. The Korean-American missionary’s reported health problems only added to concerns about his captivity.

His family this week appealed again to the North Korean regime to release him. Relatives released a video clip on the website YouTube  wishing for Bae’s swift return home.

Miller, of Bakersfield, California, had been charged with espionage and detained since April. He was taken into custody after tearing up his tourist passport at the Pyongyang airport. He was 24 at the time.

In September, he was tried for “hostile acts” and sentenced to six years of hard labor.

The post North Korea Releases Two American Detainees appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has reportedly been “critically” injured in a US-led airstrike in Iraq that targeted a convoy of military vehicles allegedly carrying a group of senior ISIS members.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a self-proclaimed as caliph of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (formerly ISIL/ISIS) was “critically wounded” during a US-led air operation in the Iraqi town of al-Qaim, tribal sources told Al Arabiya News Channel.

The strikes, which destroyed a vehicle convoy of 10 armed trucks late Friday, targeted a “gathering of ISIL leaders” near Mosul, US Central Command announced, however the Pentagon could not confirm whether al-Baghdadi was part of the escort.

“We cannot confirm if ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was among those present,” CENTCOM said in a statement, stressing that US coalition continues to “pressure” the terrorist network, and the “group’s increasingly limited freedom to maneuver, communicate and command.”

MP for Iraq’s Anbar province, Mohammed al-Karbouli, confirmed the strike saying that the “international coalition aircraft targeted a meeting of ISIS leaders in Qaim city located west of Anbar which resulted in dozens of deaths and injuries and caused severe confusion among ISIS members who then cut off all roads in Qaim in order to transport their wounded to the hospital that was packed with the wounded and body parts,” Iraqi News reports.

Colonel Patrick Ryder, a Central Command spokesman specified that overnight strikes near al-Qaim also destroyed two ISIS checkpoints.

“I can confirm that coalition aircraft did conduct a series of air strikes yesterday evening in Iraq against what was assessed to be a gathering of ISIL leaders near Mosul,” said Ryder. At least 50 bodies were brought into Mosul’s morgue, officials told Reuters.

Al-Hadath TV outlet also named Baghdadi as one of the participants of the militants’ meeting targeted by US.

However, several ISIS affiliated Twitter accounts rejected the reports, saying that Baghdadi is alive and well and calling on all supporters to ignore any false news about his “death” or “entrapment.”

Until Baghdadi’s whereabouts are confirmed, nothing can be certain of his fate. Back in September, reports of his death in a US strike circulated. Thousands of social media users were tweeting photos claiming to show the body of al-Baghdadi.

Baghdadi is something of an enigma, he is believed to have been born in Samarra, Iraq in 1971. At the time of the US-led invasion, reports indicate that he was a cleric in a mosque. Some reports suggest, that he was radicalized when he was held by US forces in Camp Bucca before being recommended for release by a Combined Review and Release Board.

He reemerged as an extremist leader in Iraq in 2010, and rose to prominence with al-Nusra Front in Syria. Baghdadi and his cell have openly defied al-Qaeda.

“The true heir to Osama bin Laden may be ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” as he has a reputation of a ruthless battlefield tactician, wrote The Washington Post’s David Ignatius in June. Baghdadi, is believed to hold a PhD in Islamic studies from the Islamic University of Baghdad.

Al-Baghdadi has long been wanted by the US. On 4 October 2011, Washington listed al-Baghdadi as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist and placed a US$10 million bounty on his head.

The latest strikes on ISIS positions come after President Barack Obama announced on Friday his plans to send an additional 1,500 troops to Iraq and a request an additional $5.6 billion from Congress to fund the effort.

The post Islamic State Chief ‘Critically Wounded’ In US Airstrike – Reports appeared first on Eurasia Review.